Saturday, August 15, 2020

SVL: Done with Surveying

 

Over the last few weeks I recreated the raw track plans for Silicon Valley Lines. This took much longer than I anticipated.

To keep my sanity I drew the plans with a small set of turnouts (Peco Code 83 #5, #6, #8, plus a couple curved turnouts). This avoids having to identify the wide variety of turnouts from all major manufacturers, including some custom-built, found on a 20 year old layout. To my delight the plans capture the look and feel of the layout very well, even though there are some minor inaccuracies and simplifications here and there.

The layout is so big that I pushed RailModeller Pro to its limits. Using the parallel track tool slowed down considerably as I approached 1000 pieces of track per level. I worked on the two main levels in separate layout files to keep the tool functional.

Technically, Bakersfield staging is still missing, but that is easily added at a later time.

I'm taking a break on this before I consider making the plans look pretty ...

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